


Jim's Night Terrors (and Spock's Empathy)

by AlyssiaInWonderland



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Trauma, Heavy Angst, Hopeful Ending, Jim is not okay, M/M, Nightmares, Other, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Spock, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Spock just wants to help, T'hy'la, but this fic is definitely explicit in places, the abuse is only told in a nightmare, trigger warning for paedophilia and rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 04:25:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11615820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlyssiaInWonderland/pseuds/AlyssiaInWonderland
Summary: Jim often has nightmares about his past traumas. Spock attempts to wake him and gets sucked into the nightmare.They deal with the fallout.





	Jim's Night Terrors (and Spock's Empathy)

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [О кошмарах и эмпатии](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12444330) by [Chmonder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chmonder/pseuds/Chmonder)



> [ Translation of work ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12444330) !
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to [ Chmonder ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chmonder/pseuds/Chmonder) !!!

The early hours of the morning were, typically, solitary for Spock. He would wake early, and move to his own room to meditate. He knew, logically, that Jim had nightmares regularly, and that it was past time that Jim would experience one while Spock was asleep next to him, but all the same he was unprepared when it happened. He was woken at 0321 hours, by Jim, who was thrashing around uncharacteristically, twisting himself up in the bedsheets until he could barely move.  
  
“No, I don’t want this, please, I can’t!” Jim mumbled, the terror in his voice and emanating from him enough to bring Spock to full wakefulness. Spock reached out, touching Jim’s shoulder to try and tap him awake, and instantly he was sucked into the dream.  
  
_Jim was shaking, disorientation and confused arousal swirling around the fragmented images with bursts of sickening, peppery fear that pricked dark spots across the colour-scape of his emotions. He was being held down by his wrists, bucking up and away from his captor as the older man pushed his legs apart. He was being dragged by his hair, dragging his neck to his step-father’s lips and drowning in the hot fear and sensation of unwanted lips burning across his skin. He was starving and cold and for every tear Kodos added another child to the kill list. He was being strapped into an exposed pose, naked, taken roughly by the hilt of Kodos’ favourite knife as he held a council meeting, and the others only watched, their eyes flickering with distaste. He was lost in a haze of horror and stubborn pleasure that came in unwanted pangs until he came with Kodos and Frank shouting insults and ownership._

Jim woke with a wordless shout, snapping Spock’s connection to his mind. He could smell the sweat and arousal, and he struggled out of the sheets, desperate, escaping so that he stood next to the bed, facing Spock. His eyes darted around the room, his breathing coming in sharp gulps of air that hurt his lungs. Spock was looking at him, his gaze too wrecked to be due to anything other than seeing his nightmares.  
  
“Y-y-you, you sa-saw.” Jim found he could only whisper, his voice sticking in his throat, a stammer returning to his voice with the flashbacks. He felt himself burn with shame, unable to meet Spock’s eyes as they turned to him in concern.  
  
“I did not intend to invade your privacy, Jim. I attempted to wake you from your nightmare.”  
  
“It’s..f-, it’s fine.” Jim forced the words out, clinging to as much of a façade of normality as he could.  
  
“Jim, it was not ‘fine’.” Spock moved to sit facing Jim. “You don’t have to be fine.”  
  
“It was just a d-dream. I clearly enjoyed it.” Jim couldn’t keep the harsh bitterness out of his voice, feeling a strange, warped kind of vicious anger building as he looked down, his body obviously slowly fading from a physical response to the images, only half-hard now.  
  
“Jim, that is not the case. The dream may not have been your trauma verbatim, but it is indicative of it. Physiological response is not-“  
  
“I know that!” Jim interrupted, unable to bear listening to the words. “It’s not like I haven’t been to – to see any psychs, Spock. They all tell me I’m not to blame. That it’s _understandable_.” He looked to the side, his hands clenching, a vein in his jaw throbbing with the tension in his body, with disgust.  
  
“And you do not believe them?”  
  
“Yes. No. I- I don’t know.” Jim blinked at Spock, at his carefully calm posture and tone that just barely hid the concern he could feel practically emanating from him. “It’s hard to explain.”

 

Spock said nothing, simply tilted his head to one side, lifting an eyebrow ever so slightly as if to encourage elaboration. Jim took a deep breath, and ploughed on.

 

“I’m so fucked up. I’m normally okay, I can keep going and not show weakness and be there for the people who actually need it. But sometimes I’m just made of glass fucking shards and it rips me and anyone around me to shreds. And I can’t explain how this feels, none of it, because everyone thinks I’m fine, think’s I’m _brave_. Fuck, I’m not brave. I’m nothing, I’m a façade and when that’s gone I’m just a broken, dirty, disgusting wreck that people should and would hate. If they could see me, the real me, they’d all leave me and hate me. They’d see that I’m fucking radioactive and I burn anyone who comes close to me because my fucking issues make me lash out or hurt them and being around my life is toxic. But it’s all this huge secret, I can’t even fucking talk about it without stammering or at all, and it’s so fucking selfish because I can’t tell anyone because if they knew they would leave and I can’t be alone again, I can’t be alone with this shit because I’m always alone, and everyone says I’m amazing but I can’t fucking handle it. I’m not strong! I’m not clever! I’m not fucking worthy of any of this genuine care because I’m rotted and tainted but people insist on fucking helping me, trying to talk to me and make me see my worth. Well, they’re fucking wrong! I have no fucking worth, I don’t deserve saving and I’m not strong! I didn’t resist, I survived. I swallowed and bent and twisted my mind instead of going down like I should have. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have survived any of this fucking shit. I need to be burned and cleaned and I don’t belong because everything that’s happened to me is stuck on my skin and inside me and I can’t fucking breathe from it. I’m supposed to be strong and I’m supposed to fight for others and I’m supposed to keep the secrets and I’m just so fucking tired. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t…”  
  
“Jim, you’re not –“  
  
“I’m fucked up, Spock. I am. I have dreams still, I have dreams and I’m fairly sure the things didn’t happen to me in real life, and that means my brain came up with it, it was me and maybe I’m the fucked up one, because when I dream about being stripped and fucked with a spoon while Kodos talks to some random council member I can only feel pleasure and fucking terror and shame and disgust but I wake up and I’m covered with cum, and I’m just a fucking slut because anything gets me off.”  
  
Silence rang within the room. Jim shoved the heels of his palms over his eye lids roughly, as if trying to press out the images left burned into his retinas. His eyes were wet, but tears wouldn’t fall.  
  
“I’m fucked up, Spock. I really, really am.” He sounded tired then. Exhausted. The anger had slipped away, leaving him utterly drained, pressed into the ground by shame and self-hatred and fear. He felt a hand touch his shoulder, and he flinched away, terrified of what would happen if Spock were exposed to his mind again.  
  
“Ashayam-“ Spock began, gently.  
  
“Spock, no, please…I know I’m screwed up – I screwed up. I shouldn’t have said anything, I shouldn’t have…” Jim pulled his limbs close to himself, curling up into a disorientated ball of tension and rocking slightly.  
  
“Jim, while your pain is my own, I am gratified that you shared this with me.” Spock reached forward again, slowly, and lightly rested two fingertips on Jim’s temple in a chaste Vulcan kiss, trying to project a feeling of calm. He could sense Jim subconsciously leaning into the soothing thoughts, before his mind and body wrenched away forcefully.  
  
“No, don’t, I can’t! I’m disgusting, I can’t accept help, I’m not-“ Jim felt the words rising up like bile, bitter and sickening in his throat.  
  
“Jim.” Spock’s voice was liquid in its tenderness and concern. “You do not disgust me. You have experienced much trauma and you describe common responses to such things. Believe me.”  
  
“I can’t.” Jim’s voice was ragged with anguish and shame. “You’re so good to me – too good. I don’t deserve you, I don’t deserve any of this! I deserve nothing.” His words were filled with a strange vehemence, a fierce self-hatred that burned through the depressive lethargy that had overtaken him, and he scrambled up, lurching to his feet unsteadily and casting about with a wild look in his eyes. He grabbed a letter opener from his desk, tapping it harshly against his outer thigh. His eyes were glassy with unshed tears and dissociation, grounded only by the rhythmic pressure and pain of the letter opener.

 

Spock moved forwards, standing opposite Jim as close as he could without touching him. He drew all of his love and care for Jim into his hands and mind, as he spoke.  
  
“Please, t’hy’la. Let me help.”  
  
Jim looked up at Spock, meeting his eyes. He quietly let Spock take the letter opener, and place it on the desk. He went back to tapping at his thigh with a fist, until Spock stilled the movement with a gentle hand. His other hand rose to Jim’s temples, and he focused on communicating through his simplest thoughts and emotions. His love for Jim. How much he valued him, the care and overwhelming affection that threatened to completely submerge Spock’s soul every time he considered the aspects that made up James T Kirk. Jim, finally, let the tears fall. It made a strange kind of sense that, of all the things to finally cause tears, it would be the unconditional support offered so selflessly by his lover.

 

“Don’t you want to give me some kind of speech about valuing my own life?” Jim half-joked through the tears, grinning slightly as he modelled exactly the response that McCoy would have had to the scenario.  
  
“It would be illogical to try to convince you of your value through words, Jim. You would not believe me. Fortunately, Vulcans have telepathy. You cannot lie in a meld.” Spock replied, carefully nudging at Jim’s mind.

 

Jim took a deep, shuddering breath, and let Spock in. They could both still see the remains of the nightmare, a sticky, slinging oil-slick that snagged on his mental landscape. The shine to it reflected images, harsh and painful, like the ones Spock had seen in the nightmare he had connected to. Spock let his mind wash through and around Jim’s, offering silent support as Jim took the calm yet potent energy and used it to create a brisk wind that swept the nightmares from the forefront of his mind. Spock gave the mental equivalent of a smile, and the fondness they exchanged felt purifying.

 

Spock slowly pulled out of the meld, bringing himself and Jim back into full awareness. Jim was still crying, and Spock felt his own eyes wet with tears.

 

“I cherish thee, Jim.” Spock rested his forehead on Jim’s, and Jim tilted his head forward a little until their noses just touched.

 

“Thank you.” Jim tried to convey the gratitude he felt at the simplicity of Spock’s response. He hadn’t tried to fix him, just been there and been supportive, and it had helped far more than anything else could have.

 

The raw emotions were still fresh in Jim’s mind, but the feelings no longer controlled him. They would never be gone. But perhaps, with the help of his Vulcan t’hy’la, they wouldn’t seem so dark or unmanageable anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> So. I know I said I was going to finish off the mirror-verse thing first, but I have been struggling a bit recently. Everything has been a bit chaotic and rubbish in my life, and I ended up using this oneshot as a way to express myself a bit.
> 
> This is, I know, pretty dark and heavy stuff. It's angsty as heck, with quite a bit of Jim bursting out with his stream-of-consciousness. I hope this turned out okay. I kinda just purged this stuff from my brain into words, so hopefully it comes across well.
> 
> I kind of hate that I had to tag Kodos/Jim and Frank/Jim as 'relationships' because they weren't relationships, they were abuse and manipulation. But warnings needed to be given so. Anyway.
> 
> As ever, comments and kudos feed my soul! Thank you for reading <3


End file.
